The President's Corner
March 2002
Dear Colleagues,
It is already nearly a month since the Mid-West International Clinic, that incredible mix of music, meals and meetings. As usual, WASBE was much in evidence, with old friends and new dropping by the booth to look at pictures of the splendid facilities for our 2003 Conference in Jönköping, to pay their subscription for 2002 or to join for the first time, and then to meet in the grandiose Waldorf Room for the WASBE reception. Many thanks to our officers who built and then manned the booth: Leon Bly, Egil Gundersen and Dennis Johnson.
At the Mid-West, the Artistic Planning Committee met twice to discuss which groups to invite to Jönköping and also to begin to plan the repertoire for the concerts and the clinics and classes. All members of the Committee were sent recordings of the groups which had submitted their audition material by December 1st, and those Committee members unable to attend the meeting voted by email. Out of over thirty ensembles applying, the following were invited to play:
| Denmark | Danish Concert Band |
| France | Orchestre d'Harmonie d'Electricite de Strasbourg |
| Germany | Symphonic Wind Orchestra of the Germany Army |
| Hungary | Symphonic Band of Kiskunfelegyhaza |
| Japan | Kanagawa University Symphonic Band |
| Norway | Norwegian Army Staff Band |
| Norway | Sarpsborg Janitsjarkorps |
| Slovenia | Delavska Godba Trbovlje |
| Spain | Valencia Municipal Band |
| Sweden | Stockholm Wind Symphony |
| UK | National Youth Wind Sinfonia of Great Britain |
| UK | Guildhall School of Music & Drama |
| USA | Florida State University Band |
| International | International Youth Wind Orchestra |
This is really an exciting spread of fourteen professional, university and conservatoire, amateur and youth bands from twelve different countries. The bands invited range from the splendidly named Delavska Godba Trbovlje from Slovenia, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2003, to the National Youth Wind Sinfonia of Great Britain, a group of students between the ages of 14 and 16 years, which broadcasted live from the BBC Promenade Concerts in the Millennium series two years ago.
What is really great is that you can now view Jönköping on the WASBE Website, as well as keeping in touch with WASBE developments. You will soon be able to view articles about Scandinavian music and follow links to the web sites of the various Scandinavian Music Centres and of the ensembles playing at the Conference.
There was as usual some terrific playing in the audition compact discs and cassettes from bands not selected, as well as a great range of literature. Interestingly, two works featured very often: Hindemith's Symphony in Bb and Grainger's Molly on the Shore. Besides these two works, we felt that many bands turned to the same slightly tired international repertoire familiar to us all from professional discs, contests and conferences. I hope that all of our members will continue to commission new repertoire and will recommend the best works to WASBE for an international platform.
I was asked after the Planning Committee had made its selections how decisions were made. Most decisions were unanimous and were made primarily by objective assessments of the groups, which were heard "blind" on disc or tape. These decisions were then very occasionally modified to take into account the type of bands, their geographical location and how often they had played at WASBE conferences.
The Committee did feel assaulted from time to time by the noise, and I was led upon my return to Manchester to seek out two books by wise conductors on dealing with dynamics with orchestras.
In Knowing the Conductor's Role (Yale University Press, 1981), Erich Leinsdorf writes: "We have no sure criteria but our good taste, knowledge and imagination to set levels. Perhaps it is because of the ubiquitous noise in our modern civilization that music seems to get louder under all but the most stubborn musicians. Not only are the decibels higher than they should be, considering the total range of a work, but the real pp misterioso is very hard to obtain from most orchestras. In setting dynamics, it is good to remember that in nearly every great score there is one climax that should remain the high point.... Perhaps the most decisive nuance in this whole reckoning will be the single ƒ, which is alas, often overdriven."
Gunther Schuller in his The Compleat Conductor (Oxford University Press, 1997) writes: "Is loudness a narcotic to which we have now become so addicted that we need ever increasing doses of it?"
With the brilliant sound of the wind orchestra, it is extremely easy to make a noise, and in our efforts for more and more excitement, all too often our sound world becomes brash and harsh. To play constantly with this level of intensity is to encourage one type of sound and as Schuller reports "when sonic/timbral refinement or variety is suppressed, feeling and emotional content are also quelled. As one superb and famous jazz musician, Milt Jackson, once put it 'If you don't get the right soumd, you can forget about feeling'."
As usual at the Mid-West, many of us escaped to Symphony Hall. I was especially lucky to be able to hear on the previous Saturday one of our exManchester RNCM students, Jane Eaglen, singing the Vier letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss and then experience the vast eighty minute post- and (it must be admitted) sub-Mahler Second Symphony by Furtwängler. The Chicago Symphony and Barenboim were on inspiring form, and this disc will be a great present for the connoisseur. I enjoyed it hugely, but I kept wondering whether that Chicago audience will ever have a chance to hear the great wind works of Schwantner, Maslanka, Colgrass, etc. Maybe it will, since the following week Barenboim was conducting Duke Ellington. Daniel, why not follow it up with a jazz piece by Schuller or Richard Rodney Bennett's Tribute to Miles Davis from his Trumpet Concerto?
Tim Reynish